Water UK has urged the government not to rush through harmful legislative changes as it strips away European Union (EU) legislation.
The Retained EU Law Bill, which currently has a legislative deadline of 2023, is designed to modernise laws the UK has continued to use since it left the EU, which for the water sector includes around 80% of the present rules.
Water UK’s director of strategy Stuart Colville suggested extending the deadline to 2030 for sectors such as water where the volume of legislation is so significant, to allow for proper review and the “avoidance of unforeseen consequences”. He said pushing the deadline to the end of the decade would allow proper time to consider the best ways to improve around 40 years of legislation, guidance and case law.
He also proposed a systematic review on a system-by-system basis, rather than an ad hoc approach, to ensure legislation that impacts multiple sectors – such as planning law for housing developments and sewers – is not be examined in isolation. This, he suggested, should take views from green groups, devolved nations, academics and other stakeholders as well as civil servants and the industry.
He called the potential termination of the bulk of law followed by the industry as “a swinging sword of Damocles over thousands upon thousands of requirements and clauses protecting rivers, seas and drinking water” that would be unachievable for government and civil servants to review by next year.
“Government will privately admit that they have nothing like the number of civil servants needed to properly weigh each piece of regulation; nor can they understand the fine detail and original analysis, options and mitigations for regulations originally worked on by people who are frequently now dead or retired.”
He suggested three potential outcomes of the current deadline:
- That some “theoretical benefits” are found with little impact but are quick and easy, while the remainder of rules are kept;
- That government inadvertently eliminates important pieces of protection for the water environment that may not immediately seem obvious;
- Or thirdly, last minute extensions are offered to current regulations with a promise of meaningful change to be made in the future in which civil servants have capacity to “creatively but unilaterally design superior alternatives”
Colville said any combination of these was possible. “The first of these would be fruitless; the second a disaster; and the third, deeply damaging.”
However, Colville did not doubt the benefits of such a review taking place and said the government’s instinct was right that improvements could be made. Modernising the Bathing Water Directive, enabling more catchment and nature-based schemes, or embedding stronger action on combined sewer overflows were three examples of legislation that could benefit from updating.
“There are ways of doing things cheaper, faster and better that were not foreseen when Directives were first put in place decades ago – for example, by targeting regulation at clearer environmental outcomes.”
He concluded that extending the deadline could still be written into law if politicians are concerned about backsliding and would ensure a legacy that actually improves the impact and efficiency of environmental regulation and avoids some of the risks of the current approach.